Overpass project sets path for finish of Carson bypass

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Granite Construction is preparing to build an overpass that will clear the way for construction of the final leg of Interstate 580 around Carson City.

The freeway is scheduled for completion in 2018.

Granite in March began work on a $9.5 million contract to build an overpass at Snyder Avenue at the south edge of Carson City. It’s the last of three overpasses that will span the new freeway, says Nevada Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Magruder.

The work, which includes re-routing utility lines, improving drainage and construction of retaining walls, is the second part of a four-phase plan to finish the $100 million freeway extension.

The first phase cost $12.5 million and involved building overpasses at Koontz Lane and Clearview Drive. Contracts for the third and fourth phases, expected to cost $22.5 million and $63 million, should be let in fiscal years 2015 and 2016, respectively, Magruder says.

Those phases call for construction of a new interchange at Highway 50, which is the terminus of the I-580 extension, and construction of just over two miles of roadway.

“Ideally you want to do it all in one contact so then you are looking at an end date, but this allows NDOT to keep the process moving,” Magruder says. “We have acquired all the land we needed, and the design has been done for years. We didn’t have the funds to go out with an entire contact, so we divided it into phases. This way when it comes ready for the freeway, those parts are already completed and it is just one less thing the contactor has to do and motorists won’t be impacted.”

Snyder Avenue is expected to be closed for roughly a year as Granite works on the overpass, Magruder says. With the upcoming completion of the Meadowood interchange in Reno, the project in Carson City becomes the largest highway project under way in northern Nevada.